The Constitutional Council of France will deliver its long-awaited verdict on April 14 on whether the government plans to raise the age retirement are consistent with Constitutionas he said today in a statement.

President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to delay by two years, to 64, the age at which people can take their pension has drawn fierce opposition from workers and unions with another day of nationwide strikes and demonstrations set for 6 April.

The Council has the power to invalidate the bill — or part of it — if it deems it to violate the Constitution. In fact, he rarely rejects entire bills.

Unions have called on Macron to withdraw or halt the bill — which has been approved but not yet published — in order to calm things down.

The government has said it is willing to talk to unions, but on other issues, and has said it will stand firm on pensions. Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne has offered to meet the unions next Monday and Tuesday.

Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT union, said earlier today that he would go to the meeting to reiterate his demand that the bill be suspended.

“The unions are not going to discuss anything else,” he told the franceinfo network. “I’m going there to explain that this reform is a dead end.”

Millions of people have been demonstrating and going on strike since mid-January to express their opposition to the bill.

The protests have intensified after the government used special powers to pass the bill through Parliament without a vote.

Opposition parties have called on the Council to scrap the bill on procedural grounds after the government set a strict limit on how much MPs could discuss it and ultimately bypassed a final vote in Parliament.

Polls show a large majority of voters oppose the pension bill and support the protests.